Petition – Helping children have both parents.

I am a mother, stepmom and a grandma. I have watched dad’s fight to have their children in their lives. Dad’s who were at one point the primary care giver of the children. I have tucked crying children into bed at night reassuring them that one day they can live with both daddy just as much as mommy. I have held my grown son while he cried because all he wanted was to be in his son’s life. I have been through all the heartache with many children and dad’s.

I have also seen the benefits of a child who may be from a divorced home but has 50/50 parenting time with both parents.My adult son has 50/50 parenting with his son and my grandson has benefited greatly from this. He has two homes, two parents that love him and he feels loved by them not torn or made to chose between them. Children don’t understand nor should they the dynamics of the court system. When shared parenting isn’t given the child feels they have to chose from one parent to the next.I have sadly also witnessed this.It is our job to protect children from this. The laws desperately need to be updated here in Canada. Times have changed and mom’s don’t stay home anymore. Dad’s are more involved in their children’s lives.Family court is supposed to be what’s best for the children, and what is best for the majority is 50/50 parenting.

I am starting this petition because my family is affected daily by this. My partner’s children love him very much and want to be a part of his life as much as they do their mom’s sadly they can’t because their mom doesn’t want him to have anything more than what the courts have ordered. He is slowly loosing the incredible bond he once had with his daughters. Please Help change this law and have 50/50 parenting a given when it comes to divorce and separation. We owe it to our children and our children’s children to see to it that they have two loving parents in their lives even if it has to be in separate homes.

4 comments for “Petition – Helping children have both parents.”

The family court system is a joke. I am a mother in the same position as these fathers, only a bit more extreme. My daughter did not know her father, not by my choice but by his own. I had sole custody and guardianship. The father tried to take his own life in 2007 via gun in the mouth. He miraculously survived. He was granted two hours of supervised visits upon his release from hospital at the end of 2008. In 2009 my parents (my only support system) moved to Ontario. Being young(24) and unsure of how I was going to raise my daughter on my own I followed them (there were no orders saying I was to remain in bc). I called my daughters father and his mother refused to let me speak to him. I informed her that I had moved but that I was willing to try and help my daughter build a relationship with her father. I never heard from them again. Three months later the police show up at my door and take my daughter, handing me a court order saying that her brain injured father now had sole custody and guardianship. I immediately got on a plane and was back in bc the same day. I was at the court house the very next day. I was not allowed to see my daughter. I was never given an opportunity to return to bc with my daughter which later I found out is always the first action taken. I was never served any court documents for the court action that was taken in Ontario. It has now been 7 years, I only see my daughter every other weekend. Her father and grandmother blame me for his suicide attempt and my poor little girl is stuck in the middle, as they are trying to punish me. The courts failed my family, the courts fail so many families. People who abuse their children have more rights than I do, women who are drug addicts have more rights than I do. People who don’t value their own lives have more rights than I do. Something needs to change with our system, it is broken and children are the ones paying the price.